That seems like a relatively straightforward expansion of a traditional idiomatic use?
1: Is that a question? The usage just threw me a bit. I perfectly understood it, though. So, yeah. It works.
I just thought it might be an interesting line of conversation.
The other possibly interesting thing I did today was set up an outside tent for a work cookout/barbecue thing for Thundersnow. I sweated an incredible amount clamoring this pole structure together at two in the afternoon in Virginia heat. Success in the tent set-up, but I ended up taking a cold shower and running my shirt through the dryer before the guests arrived at four.
My sweat glands: they are an active and responsive cooling system that kicks on with the slightest bit of discomfort. Back on the veldt it was probably an asset.
I would have included a gratutitous Phillybeard link.
I hope the beard doesn't grow too attached. It's rarely a good thing to be a Z to somebody's X.
speaking of non sequiturs-
so, yeah - trying to explain to my roommate the idea of, every day, thinking, god, i want to kill myself, so obviously sharing this link which I've had in my brain whenever I go to bed --- by which i mean the 3rd to last paragraph,
""The guy was in his thirties, lived alone, pretty bare apartment. He'd written a note and left it on his bureau. It said, 'I'm going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.' "
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/10/13/031013fa_fact#ixzz1SRtmG2NG"
ANYWAY, too drunk to check the html, but -- do most people not feel that? Like, constantly? Most days?
Because for 7 years that line has been haunting me (and I blame unfogged for giving me the link) as what I feel every day.
Uhhhh. So. Happy Monday, all!
wow - rereading, that sounds super dramatic. Don't worry! not gonna kill myself! carry on!
So, um, x. trapnel, I believe you wehn you say that you're not about to kill yourself, but you should still get some help.I know you've tried a bunch of stuff, but this is still worth pursuing.
Sorry for the excessive earnestness, but I take this stuff seriously.
My writing seems more disordered than usual, so let me just say that I liked what you wrote about structure on the recent depression thread, traps. I had not thought about it as such a central issue before.
[D]o most people not feel that?
It varies in intensity/frequency, but thoughts like that are never far from my mind, but my impression is that for most people suicide is unthinkable.
[D]o most people not feel that?
I think there are a lot of people - myself included - who don't ever feel that way. I really don't know which group is larger (and hence "normal") but it's not rare.
do most people not feel that? Like, constantly? Most days?
I don't think I have ever felt like that. Even during my darkest, most depressed moments.
Huh. Not exactly wanting to kill myself, but vaguely thinking that having to cope with being alive is an awful lot of work that I'd prefer not to have to do is someplace I go quite easily, and while it's never really gotten to realistic thoughts of suicide, it's not weird at all to me that it might.
Alameida's last post on depression had a line: "And every single morning when you wake up, even before you open your eyes you think, fuck, I'm not dead." Not every single morning, or most mornings, or even terribly often, but that's certainly a thought I've had.
The time I most seriously considered suicide was one weekend morning when I was in the 8th grade. We were living in an apartment on the 10th floor, so it was easy to imagine doing it by just jumping off the terrace. Nothing in particular bad had happened to me -- I had reached the inescapable conclusion that life was bleak and pointless, so the only sensible thing to do was to end it as soon as possible. Then my mother called me over to eat breakfast. I ate some food, and suicide no longer seemed like an appealing option. I thought about what had happened and understood that my existential despair was entirely attributable to hunger pangs, because I had been a little late in eating breakfast. I've never been able to take myself seriously since.
16 is awesome. Peep was cuckoo for cocoa puffs!
TBH, I never really think that way at all. Like most people I've had really nasty bleak periods -- mostly, but not always, with identifiable proximate causes such as relationship breakdowns, money, etc -- but I can't say those thought processes would be at all normal for me. So, basically what apo says in 14.
Low-level grumpiness and irritability with other people, yes, plus some level of melancholy/dourness but nothing like either that or the sentiments in 15.
I thought about what had happened and understood that my existential despair was entirely attributable to hunger pangs,
I've never got to the point of contemplating suicide in the way that x describes, but I do notice that any feelings of overwhelming exhaustion and depression are generally warded off very successfully by just putting on a bit of Bach and having a decent dinner and perhaps a glass of something.
"Just for Men" will keep your beard dark.
do most people not feel that?
Most people do not feel like that. Most people can only relate to that feeling by connecting it to moments of particularly nasty situational depression. Feeling like that is a sign of a serious neurological imbalance, one that can be successfully treated with the right drugs.
I know from personal experience: At the worst of my own depression the only thing that kept me from going through with my plan was thinking of the moment I told my sister that our father was dead, and the knowledge that if I did what I wanted to do her pain would be even worse and I would not be there to comfort her. Telling her and holding her as she cried was the most painful moment of my life. I brought it to mind 20-30 times a day for nearly 18 months. I had a plan to kill myself all worked out - it would be completely painless and not messy for the person who had to clean up. I deliberately made it complicated enough that as I began executing the steps there would be plenty of time to use the mental jujitsu to throw me off course and back into the miserable stewing that was my life. Since then cognitive behavioral therapy and the right meds (in my case wellbutrin - tried seroquel and paxil with lousy results) have driven the suicidal thoughts completely out of my head and given me the ability to feel moments of genuine happiness. I can look to the future with a sense that there might be some really great days ahead, and I have the power to make that happen. It's a big fucking change, but it happened one little step at a time. Tiny little wins piled one on top of the other, gradually adding up to creating a life that's genuinely worth living.
Feeling like that is a sign of a serious neurological imbalance, one that can be successfully treated with the right drugs.
Heh!
20 is a good strategy. Goldberg Variations,* nice glass/bottle of red wine.
* except fucking Dinnerstein.
It's a good strategy, in the sense that "eating right and exercising keeps people skinny" - the former works for those of us who are mostly-happy, the latter works for those of us who are young and/or lucky.
do most people not feel that? Like, constantly? Most days?
I haven't had that feeling. I have had the feeling, on a couple of occasions, that Douglas Copland describes as, "a thousand dollar day" (in his Microsoft book, which explains the dollar value):
[T]he kind of day where, even if you tell all the people you know, "I'll give you a crisp, new thousand-dollar bill if you just give me a phone call and put me out of my misery," Even still nobody phones.
I can say that, in my experience, it gets better. The worst period of my life was just after I got out of school. I was underemployed, didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and had empty spot in my life where all the energy that I had been putting into school was, and I had no idea what projects or interests would fill that space.
I think that's a common experience (I remember warning Teo about that when he was originally graduating), and that gets better.
I wasn't meaning 20 to belittle 6, just as a commentary on 16. 6 is apparently by someone who's feeling a hell of a lot worse than I think I have ever felt, and who probably needs something more robust than just roast duck and Chat 9.
I felt like that but at the moment do not feel like that. It is never far away though.
I have felt like that for entire months, except that I also wanted to jump with my children because I thought it would be too horrible to know your mom killed herself. I knew it would be horrible for my husband so I made a deal with myself that I had to cut my hand off first with the cleaver and then jump. the idea was the hand thing would dissuade me.
it's totally not normal or ok to feel like that, like every stream you see you wonder if it's too shallow to drown or not, or you want to just jump in front of every passing car. I've felt like that a lot but it because I was suffering from terrible depression and needed lots of serious medicine. people talk about "hearing voices" you think, oh, that's crazy weird, that wouldn't happen to me unless I were schizo. but the internal voices saying "why don't you kill yourself," "you should kill yourself," etc. are "voices" too. srsly, I needed antipsychotics, wellbutrin, and a shit ton of valium to become remotely ok from that point. I still think about it maybe 5 or 10 times a day, but not so insistently, and it used to be about 100 times a day. maybe once a minute. SO NOT OK. GO TO THE DOCTOR.
I acually also had my life saved by something stupid, 7-11 hot chocolate. I was 16 and I had tried to kill myself the day before with an overdose of valium and wine, but survived. my mom got me awake but we never talked about it again. I was on the metro where it's elevated, looking at the winter sunset, and I thought, well, that's it, I won't see another one. I obviously have to take the whole bottle, 500mg or whatever, and drink more. but I decided to stop at the 7-11 by the takoma park metro and I got a hot chocolate which I drank on the cold walk home, and then by the time I got home the urge had passed. well, and my mom had hidden the valium better, but it was mostly the hot chocolate.
I was once coming home from the dentist, and facing what looked to be a terrible summer (and it was) and decided "Whenever it really sucks, just tell yourself At least your face isn't numb."
I used it all summer and still use it on occasion. I really hate that feeling.
I've had periods (months) where I was pretty sure that each day had been more effort than return, and if that was how it was going to be, then the inevitable conclusion is to end the process before it goes even more negative. But outside of those months (which generally translates directly to "as the days lengthen") I don't have bleak thoughts at all.
I don't mind my face being numb from the dentist, but a childhood as a competitive martial artist has left me with the useful "Whatever I'm doing next, I'm not walking into a ring to get hit." Admitting a mistake to my boss? He won't hit me. Asking someone out? No one is going to hit me. Presentation at a public meeting? No one will hit me. Very helpful.
Presentation at a public meeting? No one will hit me.
Somebody has absurdly high opinions about the public.
I don't mind my face being numb from the dentist,
Use this to your advantage before you head into the ring.
Well, I stay away from the Klamath. And I'm not with Fish and Game.
re: 33
Admittedly I compete at a lowly level, but I'd much rather be going into the ring with someone than dealing with some prick at work or elsewhere. One of the problems with dealing with pricks at work is they don't _let_ you hit them.
Ku Klux Klan:Klamath::Count Dracula:Count von Count?
I just got into a case pending in Klamath Co. Is there something I should know?
"I could be dealing with salmon issues in a Northern California water system. This isn't that bad."
I've had moments like Trapnel describes, mostly, fortunately, limited in duration. Although I sort of shrugged them off as being part of normal life when I was younger, I now think it's right to view them as actually being a big deal. It sucks to feel like that and you don't and shouldn't have to; there is a better way. Good luck and hang in there.
I promised my kid that I will dye my beard brian-wilson-black if the Giants make the world series this year. Atlanta and the phillies have real good pitching.
Normal for seriously depressed. If you're engaging in detailed fantasies, get ye to a shrink immediately. If you're engaging in detailed fantasies with short term time frames call a friend immediately. Yes they'll freak out, but it's better than the alternative. Be careful talking to the shrinks so that they don't commit you.
I went through a period where I was fantasizing about suicide constantly, in very elaborate detail, setting times, and doing practice shit. Not good, scared the fuck out of me. Other periods where I was just doing what it sounds like you're doing, and stuff in between. While what you're doing is less unhealthy than me at my worst, it still could use treatment if for no other reason than to act as a preventative measure against the dangerous stuff. I've found that shrinkage is at its most effective in warding off suicidal thoughts.
They don't like bureaucrats, especially thieving bureaucrats who shut off their water, which is all bureaucrats.
44 -- OK, I'm out of that business now. (Worst threat I ever got back then was "purple cleansing lightning.")
I'd just avoid dealing with the Sith altogether.
My dad once had somebody call into to a radio show (it wasn't talk radio, it was just a small town where you could call and get put on the radio) and his official actions were denounced as obviously wrong because his lawn was so shitty. Dad ignored this except that he made my brother and I take better care of the lawn.
42 -- I will tattoo Bill Simmons face onto my back if the Dodgers make the World Series this year.
If this is the baseball thread, can I ask where you should try to sit if you are taking a five year old to his first game. Is it better to be high up behind the plate or slightly less high, but out by third base? Assume an unwillingness to pay much for tickets.
I haven't been to PNC, but at a lot of stadiums (like, frex, Dodger Stadium) there are dropoffs from the higher up seats, like, frex, mine, that are pretty scary for young kids. I say less high but out by third base. Plus, better chance of catching a fly ball which is all your kid will care about, except possibly, and sadly, The Wave if they do that there.
Jumping on the Pirates over .500 bandwagon!
For me (when depressed), suicide was one of those nice fantasies you'll never accomplish, like backpacking across the alps.
I'd just avoid dealing with the Sith altogether.
backpacking across the alps
It would be well outside my budgetary constraints, but I've no doubt that would be a 100% guaranteed effective suicide method for me.
49: Whichever is closest to the bathroom and the concession stand. And make sure you're on an aisle so you don't have to climb over real baseball fans every other inning.
[Longish comment on how actually almost dying changes your perspective deleted]
Trapnel, see someone to help you with this, do.
I may have said this here, as I've written about it in a few places, but as someone who has never seriously considered suicide, I've nonetheless gotten a lot of consolation from the thought of it at times, and I think it's an important distinction. It is often deeply comforting to think that if you absolutely had to, you could turn all this off. I mean...to people on some spectrum between melancholic and Depressed it can be. I guess contitutionally cheerful people never think "how lovely that at any moment I could pull the plug on this glorious cycle of song, this medley of extemporanea."
>It would be well outside my budgetary constraints, but I've no doubt that would be a 100% guaranteed effective suicide method for me.
Heh, when went hiking last summer, I got dehydrated enough to hallucinate an army platoon out of some boulders.
How the army platoon got into the boulders, you'll never know.
Heh, when went hiking last summer, I got dehydrated enough to hallucinate an army platoon out of some boulders.
Interesting! Were you hallucinating friends or foes?
I may have said this here, as I've written about it in a few places, but as someone who has never seriously considered suicide, I've nonetheless gotten a lot of consolation from the thought of it at times, and I think it's an important distinction.
You're in distinguished company.
Oh that's right. Someone quoted that at me last time I said it. Pwned by Nietzsche, yet. I swear, I came up with it on my own!
Swinburne, too. "That no man lives forever, that dead men rise up never/ That even the weariest river, winds somewhere safe to sea."
I also have this idea about how you should do unto others...well, I haven't finished it, but it's going to be great.
Don't mix the Golden Rule and suicidal thinking, Smearcase.
53 Budgetary constraints? Other than the airfare this isn't that expensive. (Ok, big exception with the current fares) Mountain huts are relatively cheap (make sure you get a membership in an official mountain club before you go) they come with cheap diners and breakfasts, and you're eating bread and cheese during the day. Minimal transport costs other than getting to the mountains. And it's a blast. Not sure how it's supposed to kill you, it's all paths, no real mountaineering experience needed.
Other than the airfare this isn't that expensive.
But aside from that, Mrs. Kennedy, how was Dallas?
Did LBJ make her pay for the trip back to D.C.?
Don't forget you'd only have to pay one way.
I spent Saturday night in the ER observation area, basically because I had some sort of virus which had left me dehydrated and malnourished. I had never been in a hospital in any kind of quasi inpatient way. Technically, I wasn't actually admitted. I had IVs in with fluids, pain meds and an anti-emetic. I was sort of afraid of death (not then, but in genral) and thinking that I'd hate to go with an IV stuck in my arm.
I'm told that the beds outside of the ED are a little bit softer, because otherwise, I can't imagine how anyone could get at all better while staying in a hospital. I couldn't sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time.
It's a really, tiny thing, but I've had passing thoughts of suicide, and this made me realize that I don't want to die.
I still hate my job and am worried that I won't be able to get a new one that will put me closer to something I might actually want to do. And there are plenty of days that I don't want to get up and take care of things at all.
Sometimes, I do wonder how the women who clean the bathrooms do it. If I had to do that job day in and day out and get treated like shit, I'm not sure how I'd find the energy to get going every day. I'd think "Most of my day is spent doing back-breaking work for almost no money. What's the point?" I suppose that this changes somewhat if one has kids.
I was looking to link this story, about biking and happiness. But got sidetracked by the encore from the concert I went to last night.
Neither, obviously, should substitute for proper medical attention. Either, though, might just work for the situationally sad.
66: And you can make the days as long or short as you like, with judicious use of trains and the Postbus system. Although nicer Berghofs can be kind of expensive. But think of all the money you're saving buying Alpkäse at the source!
re: 70
FWIW, I used to work as a cleaner. Admittedly I knew it was for a finite time period, but it was OK. At the time it paid marginally better than bar work, had better hours, and I liked the people I worked with. Also, you didn't have to kiss anyone's arse, or deal with sociopathic management.
I did come away from it with a long-lasting dislike of teachers, though, as I cleaned a school for a while, and a bigger bunch of bastards it'd be hard to think of. Cleaning in a mental hospital [literally scrubbing shit off walls] was better in some ways.
73: Bane? I have a bad feeling about this.
73: They're filming a scene or two of that across the street from my church. We got a letter from the location manager about it in the bulletin.
76: You should definitely go and see if Batman will trade you the Batmobile for that new bike you got.
Back when he was Batman, I saw Michael Keaton in Pittsburgh. It might have been my first trip here.
49: Is it better to be high up behind the plate or slightly less high, but out by third base?
Was just there tonight*. I would do the down low, my experience of kids and baseball (and other things) at that age is that they like the up close stuff. (You might really consider springing the $4 or so extra to come in one section closer.) Although there is a kids special in the infield grandstand and upper deck PNC is not too high (unlike say Ohio Stadium--do *not* go the top of that if you are having any of the thoughts discussed upthread),
*Protip: For a 5-year-old don't choose a game with 1 hour start delay and then a subsequent 1 hour 20 minute rain delay. And I wimped out and did not stay until the end of a great game**. (In the late afternoon rain before any of those my wife was probably a minute from being one of the Washington Blvd. strandees.)
**The most intriguing element other than possible Pirate 1st place was Dontrelle Willis on the mound trying to get his shit. Good control (which is what he had lost), but at the expense of looking pretty hittable. Pirates win with a 3-hit shutout 2-0; a great defensive play in the first saved at least one run.
E-mail me for more boring and specific opinions on other sections.
One good thing about cleaning is that you can really see that you made things nicer, at least temporarily.
My advice, Moby: if the guy behind you catches a foul ball, spilling his beer (not on you, I should add, but on himself), and then proceeds to give your son the ball, you should buy that guy a new beer (ahem, rude Cubs fan from a few years ago).
79: Thanks. I've only been to PNC Park once (for a concert).
82: Good advice.
Is it better to be high up behind the plate or slightly less high, but out by third base?
If you're taking your kid you should go sober.
85: And it occurs to me now that we've lured JRoth back, that he has much more direct experience of PNC Park with young children (and probably a strong opinion). I have a lot of young children at baseball experience and a fair bit of PNC Park experience but they are disjoint sets.
I don't think there's any real advantage to being directly behind the plate. I prefer to be on the third-base side. The lower-level seats around third base are what, $25? That's what I recommend.
Being directly behind the plate is great if you want to be all nerdy and watch pitch locations and fielder positioning and so on, but if you sit along the first or third base line you can teach your kid to swear at baserunners.
88: They change from $27 to $24 right about there. The first few rows right on the dugout/field go from $35 to $26. Price changes back more at the edge of the dirt than the actual base.
89.1: Which in my experience is only of interest if your kid is a baseball nerd (my eldest was back in the day) and 5 is pretty early for appreciating the "big view" even then.
I should get back on buying those.
90: man. All you people with (historically) terrible baseball teams are lucky.
Sunday is all sold out except for nosebleed. I'll have to go for next week if I want decent seats.
93 -- We're doing our part here. I've sat in $140 face value seats in Dodger Stadium this year for $25 on StubHub.
93: You should have seen the early '90s when they were in the cavernous (and crappy for baseball) Three Rivers Stadium; for a while it was $5 general admission, $1 for kids (outfield, but you were pretty much guaranteed a front row at the fence). I knew where to park for free or $3 depending on how far I wanted to make the kid(s) walk. Bring some peanuts, snacks and soda (I assume you cannot bring those in these days) and it was almost cheaper than staying home. And a few years earlier when they were very good it was almost as cheap. Pittsburgh is inexpensive for just about everything in my experience.
Pittsburgh is inexpensive for just about everything in my experience.
Except for take out beer, wine, and liquor.
You can bring food into PNC and many other stadia, actually. But no drinks other than the water bottle.
Trapnel, see somebody soon. But not just anybody, because some psychs are really counter productive and all about their own egos rather than your health.
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